One Night of Fearful Honesty in a Bar
by Gerardain
Summary: Each suffering from their own experience with Drakken's latest antics, two normally antagonistic opponents spend one night in a bar trying to face down their own truths.
1. A Hero's Truth

_Standard Disclaimer : Disney owns Kim Possible, all it's characters, locations and other such stuff._

_**Kim Possible: One Night of Fearful Honesty in a Bar **_**- **_**A Hero's Truth**_

Calling the bar a dive would actually be considered a compliment and an upgrade from its usual status. The tables were more stained and dingy then clean, its clientele doubly so and it would be considered a slow night if the police only showed up three times. It was, in short, the exact kind of place most people with any level of standards or sense of taste…or sight or sense of smell tended to avoid, which is why Kim, on just this night at just this moment, was slowly nursing yet another drink in one of the darker corners of the room.

She rarely drank, not that she thought of herself as any sort of prude or above it in anyway, it was more that she just never cared for the entirety of it all. Alcohol slowed the body's reactions and tended to dull the mind, two things she tried to avoid given her penchant for heroism. She would, on some holidays or special events, cut loose a little in this regard, but never to excess, there just wasn't any point to it. This one night however, this one long, slow, time crawling, endless night she had come closer to changing that position then ever before. Maybe it would keep her from thinking, maybe losing herself in something , anything, that could help her not focus on what had happened in the proceeding day would quiet her mind, let her mentally keep running from it all. She knew though, as sure as the honest truth itself, that she wouldn't go through with it, no really. A night to think was why she had come in here, to this place where no one would ever expect to find her, so no matter how tempting the bottom of that glass looked through the dark liquid that covered it she continued only to nurse her drinks, slowing and lessening the alcohol's debilitating effects.

How it began was the easiest to think about, it was after all the best place to start, even in a story you were telling to yourself.

. . . . .

Barkin hadn't been happy with the interruption to his lecture on the decline of military ethics and it's subsequent role in the decline of the morals of Kim's generation. The familiar four tone beep however tended to carry loud and clear through any room it happened to be in and Kim, reddened in the face with the embarrassment of suddenly being the center of attention, had been prompt to answer it, though in as whisperish a tone as she could manage while still being audible to the person on the other end.

"What is it Wade? Kind of in the middle of class."

Wade, pleasant and unfazed as ever, only shrugged.

"Sorry Kim but I thought you'd want to know. A call just went out across the police band, it seems Drakken and Shego were just spotted breaking into some high tech military hospital."

Kim sighed and gave the glaring Barkin a sheepish grin before replying.

"Ride?"

"Already on it's way, it'll pick you up behind the gym"

"Still the best Wade."

Kim deactivated the communicator and stood up, already making her way to the door.

"I'm really sorry Mr. Barkin. I know how rude it is to interrupt a teacher in the middle of class but…"

Barkin rolled his eyes and spoke in a resigned tone.

"Just go Possible. Neither of us needs to hear whatever excuse you were about to make up."

Kim felt her cooling face flush again with embarrassment. It had been the fifth time in this week alone but it wasn't as if she was scheduling these things to occur during her classes. Duly chagrined she slipped out of the room and began down the hallway toward the school's gymnasium. She slowed as she neared one particular door, expecting to see Ron likewise coming out of his chemistry class but the quite audible protests from just beyond the door made it clear that wasn't likely to be happening.

"Oh come on Ms. Martinez….I know I already missed….No I don't think I deserve special treatment I just…"

She couldn't quite make out the Teacher's half of the conversation but Ron's final disgruntled groan was a clear enough indicator that this was going to be a solo mission.

The pilot, the father of a child she had once saved, had dropped her off on the building's roof which allowed her easy access to the vent system. Though she was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, it had always amazed her that so many buildings, from super villain layers to standard big box superstores and most things in-between, had vent systems that seemed almost designed to be big enough for someone to sneak through. She could only help but wonder sometimes about how much the lower the crime rate would be if buildings would only come with non people sized vents. Still, it was another thought for another day and she made her way, as silently as she was able, toward what had begun as distant voices but were now becoming clearly indicative of the two super villains in the middle of a rather typical banter.

"…And you think this thing is going to help?"

Drakken gave a dismissive huff.

"It will once I super charge it with the supercharger you stole for me earlier this week."

"Oy, again with the supercharging . Didn't work last time Drakken, not gonna work this time."

"I'll have you know little missy that it will work this time, I've planned it all out down to every last detail. One little zap from this and everyone will be cowering at the name Drakken once again."

"Uh huh. And in all that planning, did you remember to account for all possible…"

Drakken waived her off dismissively

"Yes yes all possible outcomes."

Kim, who had managed to pry lose a ceiling vent and drop down behind a small machine of some sort as Shego had begun to speak, suddenly found the machine melted into nothing more then a heap of slag and an annoyed looking Shego pointing directly at her.

"No Doctor D. Possible as in Kim. As is she is right there."

Drakken, who looked momentarily taken aback by Kim's sudden appearance scrambled to what appeared to be a rather large, if wheeled for easy moving, laser gun.

"Ah! Shego! Keep her busy, I need more time."

Shego gave a coy grin and lit both of her hands as she leapt toward Kim.

"My pleasure Doc. Come on Kimmie, lets see if you can do better then last time."

Kim rolled away reflexively as Shego struck the ground she had just been standing on. The pair began their well practiced routine of trading punches and kicks, neither really gaining ground on the other. For every close hit or light graze that Shego would manage to score Kim would counter with a well placed kick to the mid-section or punch of her own to Shego's exposed and reaching arms. It wasn't the physical attacks that tended to win these battles, rather it was the banter between the two, the inevitability of one of them losing focus or getting enraged due to something said that typed the scales of the battle one way or the other.

Kim grunted as Shego managed to connect with a solid shoulder strike but managed to spin the momentum of the hit to her favor by moving with her body into a low sweep as she was turned by the strike's impact.

"So what's the big plan this time Shego? Bouncing a laser off the moon again?"

Shego grinned and flipped over Kim's sweep, turning into a roundhouse kick of her own.

"Nah! Old Doc seems to think his name has become something of a joke, says people don't fear him like they used to."

Kim, who could feel the beginnings of perspiration bead on her forehead, gave a small nod of understanding as she blocked Shego's kick with her arm.

"Gotta say I don't disagree. He just doesn't have the same level of menace he used to. Maybe its all that being caught by me that did it."

Shego quickly dropped her leg and managed to grab Kim's arm, using her free hand to grab Kim's other arm, forcing the two to struggle against each other for the moment,

"Who knows? All I know is this ray thingy is supposed to make people afraid of him again. Said it was being used to help soldiers face their PTSD induced fears but he could put it to a better use."

While the two women struggled for the upper hand, or in Kim's case the leverage to break Shego's grip, across the room Drakken muttered to himself as he soldered in the last connector point. With a victorious grin he hopped up to the control seat and immediately flipped the laser gun on and aimed it right at the two fighting women, a scene which elicited a groan of annoyance from him not only due to fact that Shego had not yet defeated their teenage foe but also the fact that she was now in the way of his clear shot.

"SHEGO!"

Shego grunted but kept her grip on Kim, using her slight height advantage to press Kim's wrists backwards.

"Kinda busy Doc."

"But Shego! Your in the way! I need you to…."

Drakken growled and mumbled to himself.

"Fine. Don't move, you'll be to afraid of me to be angry anyway."

Drakken locked the laser gun's sights directly on the pair of women and gave a devilish grin.

"Be afraid Kim Possible! Be very afraid!"

Drakken fired and a sickly orange beam shot out of the end of the gun and slammed into the two women, enveloping both in glow that seemed to overtake even Shego's standard pale green complexion. Neither woman moved so much as a muscle as they were enveloped, in fact so far as Drakken could tell both seemed to have suddenly become stock still, frozen in their hand held struggle. Yet just as fast as it had enveloped them, it vanished and in the blink of an eye, four eyes to be exact as Kim and Shego both seemed to blink incessantly for a moment, it was over. Both women stared at each other momentarily, as if adjusting to reality for the first time, then simply dropped their arms, breaking their gripping stalemate, and began walking away from each other.

Drakken, very confused by this sudden occurrence, attempted to flex what he felt sure was his new found power in what he considered his scariest tone.

"Be hold Kim Possible, your fears made manifest in your most terrifying enemy, Doctor Drakken! Feel your entire body quake with fear at my merest utterance. Cower and shake as you look upon…."

Drakken found himself suddenly cut off as he was roughly yanked collar first by Shego who still remained silent, choosing instead to forcefully drag the grandstanding villain toward the waiting hovercraft at the rear of the room.

"What? SHEGO! I demand you let me go. Don't make me have to put the fear of Drakken into you."

Despite his protests Shego said nothing as she roughly, and quite easily, through him into the hovercraft and jumped into the driver's seat. As it lifted off and up through an open series of sky light panels, Drakken's whining tone could still heard.

"You're doing it wrong! You're supposed to be afraid of me!"

. . . . .

"A bit off your beaten path aren't you Princess?"

Kim, taken out of her memory trip by the sudden intrusion of the voice, didn't even bother to look up at it's source.

"Please Shego, not right now. I just…I can't. Not right now, not tonight. Just go…just, please go."

Shego, perhaps out of enjoyment of their antagonistic relationship or perhaps for some personal reason she would never admit to or perhaps even in acknowledgement of what had occurred earlier in the day, ignored Kim's words and instead sat down across from the teen hero, the tall mug in her hand already half empty and dropping lower every moment.

"Not looking to start anything Princess. Just came in for a drink and was shocked to see you of all people here. Never took you for the slumming type."

Kim shook her head.

"I'm not slumming, I came to think…."

She took a small sip of her glass and continued to stare down into it.

"…Maybe just to get away."

Shego shrugged in indifference. Neither spoke for quite a long time, Kim just continued to just stare down into her glasses while Shego seemed intent on replacing her blood with alcohol given the rate she was ordering new drinks and yet to even the untrained eye she never appeared the least bit intoxicated.

Despite the noise of the bar around them, the silence at the table, what silence there was between Shego's burps and Kim's audible sips, was threatening to become deafening and it was only by the sudden and unprovoked utterance of Kim that it failed to be so.

"What did you see?"

Shego seemed to regard the question with something akin to a far off look, as if considering a secret only she knew before given the barest of perceptible shivers and focusing fully on her drink.

"A good reason for a drink or ten."

Kim didn't, or perhaps simply couldn't bring herself to, press Shego further so both women returned to the silence of their drinking. Too see the pair in that moment one would never know of the history they had, of their vibrancy and strong wills, instead all that an observer would ever see was two people obviously avoiding something in favor of a far easier silence.

It was another 10 minutes before the silence was broken again and again it was Kim who spoke, perhaps out of a need to talk to someone, anyone, if only to get out of her own mind.

"I saved the day."

Shego gave a small chuckle

"A rather generous interpretation of how it ended."

Kim shook her head slightly.

"No…I mean…"

She trailed off momentarily, as if attempting to brace herself for her next words.

"That's what I saw."

Shego set down her glasses and exhaled.

"Sounds rough Princess. Big hero saves the day, adoring fans, cheers, oh yeah I can see why that would drive anyone to drink."

"NO."

Kim, though momentarily taken aback by her own tone and volume, shook her head again.

"You don't get it Shego. That's not what I meant. It wasn't just about saving the day."

Intrigued, Shego focused her gaze on Kim.

"Enlighten me then."

. . . . .

Reality had fallen away somewhere, replaced by nothing more then a smoky white emptiness that seemed to stretch on infinitely in every direction. Kim was experienced enough to realize almost instantly what must have occurred. A momentarily slip in focus, a bit to much concentration on her battle with Shego must have allowed Drakken time to use the laser gun, but….if he had then this didn't make sense. It wasn't supposed to take her away someplace it was meant to…well she didn't really know how it was supposed to work but given what Shego had said she had expected something scarier then this. Being stuck in some sort of void was weird sure, but given her life it didn't even rank in the top 100 of her scariest moments.

"_That's just like you Kim. Ever the brave hero._"

A voice that seemed to come from everywhere and yet nowhere suddenly spoke out in a mocking tone.

"_Gotta keep it together Possible, keep cool, calm, keep that edge_."

The voice was lacked any sort of warmth or…humanity to it, no instead it was cold, almost condescending, as if it knew something everyone else didn't. The worst of it however was that the voice, the cold and cruel voice that was speaking to her was her own, a fact that rather confused Kim.

"So my biggest fear is myself? Gotta admit, kind of don't buy it."

The disembodied voice gave a cold chuckle.

"_Let's talk about what you really fear Kim. Is it being normal_?"

Suddenly the emptiness too fell away and Kim found herself in her high school stadium admits some sort of rally. All around her students cheered as the cheerleaders flipped and turned through a well practiced routine in the center of the gym but Kim herself wasn't in those cheerleaders, no instead she was packed into one of the many bleachers, just one student in an endless row, nothing more then a face in the crowd.

"_You push yourself so hard to stand out. Genius daughter, head of school committees, cheerleader, hero, world saver…and all while you claim to be just a basic average girl_."

Kim grunted as she felt, truly felt as if this were reality itself, the students on either side of her press tighter against her and the roar of a crowd, who seemed to not even acknowledge her presence, just continued to rise. Kim's protests and calls for people to pay attention to what they were doing were easily drowned out no matter how loud she tried to yell, her pushes back to the students around her seemed to have no effect. She was going to drown in a sea of people and no one was going to notice when suddenly it was all gone and she found herself back in the smoky emptiness.

As fast as it all came back though, it left again as the voice, her voice, spoke again.

"_Is it being too late_?"

She had barely a second to register the vastness of the room she was in, and the fact that she was now dressed in her mission wear, when Ron's voice rang out.

"KIM!"

Instantly her vision focused in on Ron who was pointing across the room at a ski masked individual whose gun was trained on a mother and child that cowered only a few feet away. With not even a moment's thought Kim's shot off like a proverbial bullet, every stride of her leg and pump of her arm focused solely on closing the distance to the gunman. Sadly the actual bullet moved far faster and the two suddenly stopped cowering, just as she came within reach of the weapon. She could only given an involuntary scream of shock as the mother and child dropped lifelessly to the floor. A torrent of emotions overtook Kim in that instant but all of it only served focus into her hand as she latched down onto the gunman's arm and dug, causing his hand to spasm and drop the weapon, even as he screamed in pain. As she pulled back her fist ready to shove all of the anger and rage and shock that was swimming in her mind into one punch she was suddenly holding nothing, back again in the emptiness.

"_Maybe it's just being simply overpowered_"

Suddenly she found herself surrounded by every villain she had ever faced. Drakken, Monkey Fist, Bebes, Duff Killigan, Warmonga and more, all bearing the evilest of grins, swarmed.

"_You've amassed quite the rouge's gallery_"

Kim managed to duck a strike by Monkey First only to be caught in the side from a Bebe's steel arm.

"You have to wonder..."

Kim tried to recover as Dementor and several nameless henchman all grabbed for her.

"_When will it get to be too much_?"

Kim rolled away from the reaching men but ended up face to face with Senior Senior, who used his can to knock Kim's feet out from under her, landing her on her ass.

"_When will it all end_?"

Kim scrambled quickly to her feet, in time enough to avoid another strike from Senior Senior's cane but not enough to avoid being pulled backward into the circle of villains, who suddenly parted as a smirking and plasma ready Shego step forward.

"_Who will it be_?"

But like the other times all the villains were suddenly just gone, as if they had never been there, despite Kim's sudden pain to the contrary.

"_But none of that's it is it_?"

Kim, by this point, was struggling to keep up. Though she knew none of this should be real everything she had experienced so far seemed just that and despite herself this was beginning to scare her.

"_We know what really scares us, the fear that hides in the back of our mind everyday_…"

As suddenly as ever Kim was in some sort of parlor, not that dissimilar from the one in her own house. The sun was shining brightly through a large nearby window which meant wherever she was it was still the same time, if not earlier, then when she had been in the military hospital. Her train of thought never moved beyond that thought however as the sniffles and half hearted tears of a small child, knees pulled close and a teddy bear in one hand, sitting in a large chair nearby caught her attention. The little girl looked almost every bit like Kim at that age, but lacked the red hair Kim had had. Instead this little girl's hair, a darker blond, was pulled into pigtails and her eyes, though red and puffy from obvious crying, were closer to blue then Kim's green.

The creek of a door opening behind her caused Kim to spin around as two people walked into the room,. two very familiar and adult looking people.

"Honey, don't cry."

A well beyond teen years Kim crouched down in front of the small girl and gave a saddened ooh before speaking..

"Mommy loves you but I have to go to Africa to stop a bad man from hurting a lot of people."

The little girl only sniffled in response. Kim found herself taken aback

"I hate to go, 'specially on your birthday but auntie Hana will read you a story if I'm not back by bedtime."

The little girl gave a small but still sad smile as the elder Kim kissed her on the forehead and walked out of the room.

Before Kim could react the scene shifted again and she saw the older version of herself, clad in what appeared to be a bridesmaid outfit cut down the middle to allow for more movement, dodging and flipping as a group of well build henchmen fired rapidly at her. Her kimmunicator was held to one side of her face and she did her best to maintain her tone and breathe as she kept moving.

"If I don't make it back before it's over, tell Tim and Jim I'm sorry for running out but someone had to stop him."

The elder Kim swore as she turned to avoid a blast only to have another graze her arm, drawing obvious blood.

"No…No Ron was there, he'll look after her….I know they only gave me the day off for the wedding but I still have to rescue that kidnapped heiress from Camille Léon after I stop Drakken. No…tell them I'm sick….I don't care, this is more important!"

Kim, who had felt her blood begin to run cold at first site of her elder self and the child, now found herself much the worse, lost in a realization as the her own disembodied and cold voice echoed in her ears.

"_That we'll never be able to stop_"

. . . . .

Shego didn't say anything at first, she simply remained motionless, as if absorbing the full effect of what Kim had said, even as Kim continued.

"And that's the worst part….that worst fear that we all have, scarier then any other because its based on a truth we don't want to ever admit or say, that really is mine."

"Princess…"

Kim continued without pause.

"I've never wanted to admit it but I've always been afraid I'll never be able to have a life, a real two kids and a home life, because I know, deep down I'm not a basic average girl."

She took a small sip of her drink and continued.

"It has nothing to do with ego and everything to do with the truth that I can do things other people can't…I stand up to the type of people others could never face…and I can't just sit back and let things happen, its not who I am, never who I am or could ever be. If I don't try and save them…don't at least try to stop those who hurt other, who will?"

As if it were pouring out of her and she was unable to stop it, Kim continued.

"What gives me the right to stay home when I know I could try, could make a difference? Isn't it the worst kind of selfish to think my life is more important then anyone else's? If they come to me and I say no…If I don't go…."

Her final words came softly, more a curse upon herself then a statement.

"When good men do nothing, evil triumphs"


	2. A Villain's Veracity

_Standard Disclaimer : Disney owns Kim Possible, all it's characters, locations and other such stuff._

_**Kim Possible: One Night of Fearful Honesty in a Bar **_**- **_**A Villain's Veracity**_

It was a sad fact of her revised biological nature that Shego had something of a resistance to the effects of alcohol. No matter how much she drank she never truly got a good buzz going, more often then not any beginning effects tended to burn through her quickly, leaving her with nothing so much as an overwhelming need for the bathroom. This did not however stop her from ever trying as her frequent attendance to specific lounges would attest and had it been any other day she would have spent this drinking time in one of those locations, but being thrown out of several of them for almost starting fights with bartenders who weren't serving her fast enough was limiting her options. So it was that, after her removal from lounge number 3, she decided to aim her sights a little lower on the scale of reputable establishments. She didn't make a habit of attending a lot of the common villain hangouts, she got enough of those people on the job or in prison why in the hell would she want to spend her free nights with them even if alcohol was involved, but if there was one thing those types of places were known for it was the liberal use of a beer tap, if only out of fear of their customers reactions should they be denied. Her particular choice at this moment, a dive of a place she had only once been to when she was first starting out, was more the scene of the common mugger or street brawler then anyone she would ever have known, which she decided was fine enough if not somewhat ironic all things considered.

Her first pitcher had been ordered and consumed at the bar itself and all though it still wasn't having the desired effect, nor did 2 and 3, concentrating on drinking was at least letting her drown out her own thoughts. This was until, in a moment of lackadaisical crowd scanning, she spotted rather the last person she would have liked to have seen on this night. A familiar length of orange hair, albeit hung at the moment around a tall pint glass, gave a clear indication to Shego that the universe had rather a sick sense of humor.

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…"

Shego sighed as she stood up, mug 2 of pitcher 4 in hand, and made her way to the table. If she were the type she would have allowed herself to spend the few steps laboring under the hope that it was going to be a case of mistaken identity, given the location and all, but she was not nor would she have ever made such a mistake given their history. Never more were there two people who could spot each other with just a glance then a teenage hero and her nemesis.

"A bit off your beaten path aren't you Princess?"

Kim seemed to almost flinch at the words, as if she too was none too happy with encounter.

"Please Shego, not right now. I just…I can't. Not right now, not tonight. Just go…just, please go."

It was Kim's tone that actually gave Shego pause. She should have done just that, left her be, after all all she had wanted before coming in here was to drink in peace yet something in the tone of the words had struck a chord. They had both been there, both seen…something, both agreed without a word to just end the fight right there and leave and yet here they were again, finding each other in a place neither would ever have been. If nothing else perhaps the company would alleviate her mind, it could do little to make it worse.

Shego stole one of the empty chairs from a nearby table and sat herself across from Kim.

"Not looking to start anything Princess. Just came in for a drink and was shocked to see you of all people here. Never took you for the slumming type."

Kim shook her head.

"I'm not slumming, I came to think…."

She took a small sip of her glass and continued to stare down into it.

"…Maybe just to get away."

Whatever Kim had seen, and Shego expected she had seen something given the hero's sudden attraction to beer, seemed to have effected her on rather a deep level…or perhaps Kim was just less skilled at hiding it then she herself was.

That neither of them said anything for quite a long time was both a blessing and a curse in Shego's mind, due largely to just that, her mind. The silence allowed for more drinking but it also forced Shego to acknowledge that both of them were mentally running away from things they didn't want to face. Shego was good a running, hell given her life she had better damn well have been, but everyone tires eventually and eventually there comes a point where you have to turn and face the thing you were running from, desires to do otherwise be damned. Thankfully for Shego so long a she had beer she was damn sure going to keep running, even she had to drown herself to do it.

"What did you see?"

Kim's sudden break of the silence caught Shego off her guard, something she hadn't even realized she had lowered. Akin to asking someone not to think about elephants the memories of that afternoon began to consume her thoughts, flashes of the swirling white emptiness, her own cold voice mocking and chiding, played on her mind. Not eager , or perhaps simply not willing in front of Kim, to relive the experience she gave a small shudder at the thoughts and attempted to shove them away with a fresh mug.

"A good reason for a drink or ten."

Kim seemed to regard her answer with a knowing look of exhaustion, as if she too had no desire to speak on the matter either but had resigned herself to the truth that it was going to come out at some point regardless. The pair returned to their silence and their drinking, try to eek out every moment of aversion from their experiences that they could. Again it was Kim who broke that silence, the look in her eyes a clear indicator that the moment of resignment had finally come at last.

"I saved the day."

Shego couldn't help but give a small chuckle. Then again perhaps Princess was still willing to fight to avoid the conversation.

"A rather generous interpretation of how it ended."

Kim shook her head slightly.

"No…I mean…"

She trailed off momentarily, as if attempting to brace herself for her next words.

"That's what I saw."

Shego set down her glasses and exhaled. It seems she had read her drinking partner wrong. If that was the worst of what Kim had seen however then she envied her, perhaps to the point of anger. What did it say about her own screwed up head that Kim Possible got off easy from the whole event?

"Sounds rough Princess. Big hero saves the day, adoring fans, cheers, oh yeah I can see why that would drive anyone to drink."

"NO."

Her outburst seemed to shock herself almost as much as it had Shego. Rarely was Kim known for losing her cool, though a phantom twinge in Shego's back served as acknowledgement that it could happen.

"You don't get it Shego. That's not what I meant. It wasn't just about saving the day."

This was the moment where Shego found her interest piqued. She had never considered Kim much beyond her role as annoying teen hero, or rather she had never allowed herself too. They had forged something of a history after all this time, a deeper one then Shego would have liked but not one she was wholly adverse too, yet in all of it she had never seen Kim so…thrown off when it wasn't because of Shego herself. If there was a story to be told here Shego now wanted to hear it, if only to have something to compare her own experience against.

"Enlighten me then."

The tale Kim told struck a frighteningly familiar chord in Shego, one she thought that she had buried along with her past as a hero years ago. When she and her brothers had first started out their careers had been envisioned in their minds in much the same way Kim's seemed to. Dreams, or rather her brothers' dreams, of being world spanning heroes for justice that went wherever they were needed had quickly been dashed upon the reality of the life and yet for whatever reason Shego had been the only one to realize it. Fighting the same stupid villains over and over again, saving the same city full of stupid people again and again, like spinning in a hamster wheel, never really getting anywhere. Was that all that was to be of her life? Did great power have to mean great responsibility? Shego had finally had enough one day, struck out against her own fate and changed her life by her own hands but it seemed that Kim was only now coming to face that truth.

"And that's the worst part….that worst fear that we all have, scarier then any other because its based on a truth we don't want to ever admit or say, that really is mine."

Call it the beer finally having an effect, call it the last echoes of a person she once had been, but Shego understood.

"Princess…"

Yet Kim continued unabated. It was an amazing thing to watch someone unravel right before her eyes, to see everything they were brought into question and just come pouring out of them like a waterfall. Worse then any death trap Kim had ever been placed in, worse then any battle Shego had ever brought to her, Kim's pain seemed to come from a hurt she had never had before and with every passing second the words became more pleading, as if she was losing more of herself with every sentence.

Her final words came softly, almost missed by Shego who for the first time, and much against her typical nature, felt genuine concern for the person sitting across the table.

"When good men do nothing, evil triumphs"

Kim just sat silent after that, as if she had emptied herself and had no more words to use, but her face still held that same tortured and pleading look. If Shego were still her heroic former self, something she had no regrets about no longer being, she would have had just the right thing to say to save this dying girl in front of her…but she wasn't, she was the woman who had tried to kill this girl many times over, who on most days would have taken more pleasure in beating her then ever consoling her. No, no hero was she, she didn't have any good or right words, only….

"I saw myself."

Shego let her words fall out into the air with every bit of force she could muster, as if to overwhelm Kim's current state with her own. If nothing else the words seemed to shake Kim free long enough to regard the statement for what it was.

"Your scared of yourself?"

Shego waived her off.

"Someone once said it's not just about that, remember?"

Shego gave a hard sigh.

"Look, I know certain hard truths about the life I live and the choices I've made and I've never shied away from them."

Kim frowned.

"Then what…"

Shego glared.

"You want to hear the big story? Then shut up and save all the questions for the end of the tour."

. . . . .

That one moment she had been in struggle against Kim, and winning in her opinion, and now she was in some sort of white empty void place was not the first thought on Shego's mind, rather it was the responsible party.

"DRAKKEN"

She couldn't believe him. He couldn't wait 5 seconds before he took his shot? When she got out of…wherever oh was she going to have some words for him.

"_That's it Shego, get angry, it's what you do best."_

Shego spun reflexively, despite that fact that the voice appeared to be coming from all around her. A few plasma balls launched into the smoky mists yielded no results save for triggering the voice, her voice she recognized, again.

"_Quite the little hot head."_

"Ok, I don't know what the hell the deal with this place is but if this is supposed to make me afraid of Drakken, he is seriously screwed up in the head."

"_But it's your head we're in Shego, so let's talk about what you are afraid of…"_

"Afraid?"

Shego smirked and lit both her hands.

"Do I look afraid?"

If it was possible to hear a smirk, Shego would have sworn she heard just that as the voice continued.

"_When you first got your powers you were afraid. Afraid you'd end up hurting someone. Your parents, your brothers…"_

It started with the plasma flames wobbling slightly, first by a little but then more rapidly as they flared up, shooting up her arms and engulfing her entire body, save her head. For the first time ever Shego felt the effects of her own powers and she could do nothing but scream in pain despite herself.

"_Yourself"_

Shego knew what was happening couldn't have been real, her powers didn't work like this, but that certainty did little to cease the overwhelming pain she was now in as she felt her own skin begin to blister and bubble under the coat of flames. If ever she had claimed to be in more pain then in that moment it was a lie, yet as she dropped to her knees involuntarily it was suddenly all gone, as if it had never even been, her clothes and skin untouched. She struggled to her feet, phantom echoes still dancing on her skin despite the flames' absence

"You've…got to…do better then that."

"_Always so tough, so strong. So confident you're unbeatable…" _

Shego never saw the backhand coming yet very much felt it, as if a semi had just hit her. There was nothing to slow her descent as her body arched through the air and slammed into ground that didn't exist, finally tumbling to a stop a good distance from where she had been standing.

"_But what if you're not?"_

Shaking her head clear as she stood, and though she would deny it later, a bolt of genuine fear shot through Shego as a familiar giant green form stormed towards her, alien staff charged with crackling energy. Their last fight hadn't ended at all in Shego's favor and the thought of another one….

"_You've faced monsters from beyond the stars…and lost."_

Shego had time enough to lob several plasma balls at the charging Warmonga, though to little effect, before the giantess struck down with her staff setting off a blast of energy that knocked Shego back onto her back.

She yelled in frustration and leapt up, charging directly at Warmonga with both hands clawed and lit. Her strikes seemed to have little effect, Warmonga simply looking at her as if she was annoying gnat, and as Warmonga grabbed one of Shego's arms and simply lifted her off the ground, Shego realized that she wasn't winning this fight either. The strike she was waiting for never came however as in the blink of an eye Warmonga was gone and Shego found herself on a rooftop in the middle of storm.

"_Or is it the more earth bound monsters you're afraid of?"_

She barely had time to register her surroundings to any full awareness before a sickeningly familiar form, dressed in a white and blue suit and bearing a cold yet furious smile, was in front of her. There was no time for reaction, no time to prepare, only time enough to remember and to dread as Kim delivered a single high kick to the center of Shego's chest that sent her flying back through the emptiness of the void before slamming again against the hard railing of an all too solid tower and crumpling hard to the ground.

Whether the blood that now pooled out from Shego's mouth was real or as imagined as everything else was irrelevant to Shego. Despite the screams of her body, despite the blur that had overtaken her vision, despite the ringing that sang in her ears, Shego stood .

"You can hit me with everything I've ever fought…"

Shego spat, more blood then salvia flying from her mouth, and continued.

"…and I'll still get back up because I survived it all before. My past only made who I am today and I'm still standing…"

Shego, wobbly but unwavering, struck a fighting pose.

"So come on, do your worst."

Shego own cold voice floated out from the reaches of the nothingness all around her and gave a chuckle.

"_But who are you really Shego? Are you still hero somewhere inside?"_

Shego suddenly found herself assaulted from her left side via a punch delivered by a much younger version of herself, one bearing an all to familiar mask and an eager grin that seemed to indicate a desire for a fight.

"_The angry thief and sidekick, __full of sound and fury__?"_

As quick as she countered the punch from her former heroic self, she found herself struck in the shoulder by a more contemporary version of herself. This Shego, giving a bellowing yell of anger, quickly followed her strike with an overhead fist slam that the true Shego managed to avoid only by a quick series of steps backwards.

"_A conqueror?"_

An older Shego, graying at the temples and bearing a more tyrannical version of her normal outfit, caught Shego as she stepped backward and slammed her fist into Shego's gut, eliciting a grunt of pain. In the haze of the pain, the vaguest sense of familiarity toward this older Shego danced across Shego's brain but just as with everything in the emptiness of the void she was in, it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared.

The hero Shego was the first to speak, her voice every bit a mirror of the nothing's own, as she closed in on Shego with a leaping kick..

"_It's not our past that we really fear…"_

Shego managed to avoid the kick and tag the hero with a plasma swipe as the hero landed, causing her to tumble forward from the hit. Before Shego could follow up her focus was stolen away by the older Shego who brought down a volley of punches as she too spoke.

"_It's the cold inescapable truth of our future..." _

The older Shego slammed her leg into Shego's side with enough force to send her staggering as she continued her words.

"_That we could rule the world and yet at the end of it all all we'll ever be is…"_

The older Shego gave Shego one last palm strike, knocking her off balance, as she uttered her final word.

"_Old…"_

The thief Shego, still bearing the very rage that Shego had allowed herself to fall into far too many times in her own battles, used Shego's unequal balance to slam a high kick into Shego's back, knocking her to her knees and continuing the speech.

"…_angry…"_

Her body beaten and her vision fading, Shego could do little but waver on her knees as all three Shegos suddenly vanished, replaced by a single Shego who stared down almost regretfully at a small strip of photos before looking up at Shego.

"_..and alone."_


	3. Where The Middle Ground Lies

_Standard Disclaimer : Disney owns Kim Possible, all it's characters, locations and other such stuff._

_**One Night of Fearful Honesty in a Bar **_**- **_**Where The Middle Ground Lies.**_

Shego finished her story with her gaze locked solely on Kim, as if in challenge to any question she would ask. Of the questions Shego had expected however, the one that Kim asked when finally she spoke was not one of them.

"Do you really think I'm a monster?"

"Do you really think I'm going to be the one that kills you?"

"You've tried before…."

"You kicked me into a tower which then fell on me, so you'll excuse me if…"

Shego groaned and took a calming breathe and held up her hand.

"Look Princess, for once lets just not."

Silence once again fell between the pair though with both having revealed the truth of what they saw it was a far more tense silence then what had come before. True to both their stubborn natures neither seemed to be willing to be the first to speak but sometimes even silence can get to be too much and someone finally relents.

"When I was still with my brothers…I used to worry about the same thing."

Kim looked up surprised, first that it was Shego who had relented and secondly that she had just uttered such a revealing statement, despite everything.

Shego returned Kim's gaze as she continued.

"Let's get one thing clear Kimmy, I'm not shopping for any sort of new best girlfriend or anything like that we're going to be chalking up everything I say tonight to alcohol…"

Shego took a strong swig from her mug.

"but the truth is Princess, I understand."

Kim's reply was perhaps tinged with just a touch too much disbelief.

"How could you Shego?"

Shego's word came with their own tinge of clear anger.

"You think you're the only one whose ever been afraid of being trapped by their life? Every damn day in Go City I woke up to the same thing, people who couldn't make it through without my help, people whose lives depended on my being there to save them in the nick of time. There was no saying no, no days off, just endless heroics. So you don't get to sit there and act like I could never understand what the hell your feeling right now."

Kim looked truly regretful for her words, as if despite herself she hadn't considered just how true Shego's past could have made her words.

"Shego…I'm sorry."

"Damn right you are."

"It's just…I'm graduating soon Shego and yeah, I managed to make it through high school while still doing my missions but how long can that last? I doubt I'll find a college willing to let me just walk out of class whenever I need to no matter how understanding they may start out. And what about a job? What kind of job can I really hold if I'm racing across the country at all hours of the day? Working at Club Banana has already been tense because of all my missed shifts, I can't imagine…."

Kim took a breathe to steady herself and continued.

"The day when I'm going to have to make a choice is coming and I can't…I can't say that I can choose myself over the world, I just don't know if I can do that."

Kim look up at Shego with an almost pleading gaze.

"How did you do it? How did you walk away?"

Shego set down her now empty mug.

"By realizing that it never ends Princess. There is always going to be someone to save, the world is always going to be in danger, it's the cost of existing."

"Hego said you left because you liked the evil more."

Shego snorted derisively

"Oh yeah, must have spent a lot of brain power on that one."

"Was he wrong?"

"That's…"

Shego trailed off, as if trying to decide on her answer. To Kim's dismay when she finally did speak it wasn't the inspiring truth she had been hoping for.

"Let's just say it's not as simple as Hego said and that all you need to know is that the world is filled with people trying to save it, my brothers, Team Impossible, Global Justice…people who've made careers out of being the hero. You can choose to live that life if that's what you really want but I think today showed you it's not and trust me when I say the world can get on minus one teen hero."

"But to just turn away…"

"Never said to drop it cold turkey but you need to start drawing a line at least or your going to live the rest of your miserable life saving other people instead of yourself."

Kim nodded but returned to staring down into her drink. In her mind she realized the truth of what Shego was saying but her mind wasn't the sole bearer of this weight, and her heart still hung heavy despite the words. The sole forward ground she could claim thus far was in the fact that someone truly understood even if that someone, as she had been recently reminded, had tried to kill her on more then one occasion. It was perhaps due to just that that Kim now found it hard to look at Shego and still see the woman she had fought only hours before, harder then it had been the first time they had met after the Miss Go incident, so instead Kim chose to focus on an aspect of Shego she could still see….

"Are you really afraid you'll end up alone?"

Shego rolled her eyes.

"Oh goody, are we on to me now?"

"Shego…"

Shego gave a reluctant, if somewhat only half hearted, look of resignment.

"Like I said before, I know certain hard truths about the life I live and I've never shied away from them. How many bad guys you hear of that get happy endings Princess?"

"Then why…."

Shego shrugged and emptied the remainder of her pitcher into her mug, looking for just a moment forlorn.

"Maybe knowing your fate doesn't mean you still can't be afraid of it on some level…"

It was that forlorn look that sparked her own small moment of understanding in Kim, an understanding that tinged her words as she spoke.

"Or maybe the things you want when your older just aren't the same things you wanted when you were younger…no matter how much you try and force them to be."

Shego tilted her mug toward Kim, as if in agreement with the statement.

"And there is one of the hard truths of life."

As Shego took a swig from her mug, finally seemingly more at ease, Kim decided to try and press the moment of solidarity forward.

"Maybe that's why you were literally fighting yourself…"

She trailed off, hoping to lead Shego into continuing. It was not the most subtle of tactics, nor did it succeed as Shego instantly, and quite audibly, returned her mug back to the table and fixed Kim with a cold stare.

"That was not an invitation to try and psychoanalyze me Possible. Better shrinks then you have tried and the last one ended up in the burn ward for his effort."

Kim felt duly chagrined and for a brief moment considered relenting. It wasn't typically in her nature to pry into someone else's life and yet…despite their history Shego had made an effort to help Kim on more then one occasion, even if it had been begrudgingly, so how could she hold herself to any less a standard. That she would have to fight Shego to hold to that standard was both the saddest and truest summation of their relationship Kim realized. Even in the moments when they could see each other beyond their adversarial nature, it always somehow came back to a fight that only one of them would win.

"Damn it Shego, for once stop trying to be the toughest person in the room. You can't keep running away from what happened."

Shego, who seemed rather surprised by Kim's sudden combative attitude, remain steadfast in her stare.

"I can do anything I want Princess, that's the great thing about me. I take what I want, I live how I want, I do what I want."

Kim gave an exasperated yell.

"How? How can you be so willing to help me and then the next instant fight me tooth and nail when I try and do the same to you?"

"Because you still have a choice Kimmie, me? I made mine a long time ago and big news, I like my life. I like the stealing, I like the scheming, hell I even like our fights so if all that means someday down the road I gotta pay for it by being a bitter old woman who lives alone, I'll suffer the cost because right now is all that matters."

Shego smirked self-confidently but Kim's response caught her off guard.

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't believe you Shego. I've seen you tonight, the hesitant looks, the moments of doubt. That Shego, the one I know you really are, keeps slipping through the cracks of your armor, so don't sit there and pretend your fine because you wouldn't be here tonight, with me, if you weren't. You would have left the second you saw me. "

Shego allowed a noticeable anger to display on her face.

"You think you have me all figured out don't you Kimmie?"

Kim shook her head as she replied.

"No and that's the point, I don't know the first thing about you. For too long all you've ever been is this woman I fight and it's only sometimes, if I'm lucky, that I see pieces of someone else. Aviarius, Warmonga, Miss Go, those were the times that I'll remember the most because those were the times when you were something more then just that woman."

Shego gave Kim a skeptical look but said nothing as she continued.

"But all those moments pale in comparison to tonight because tonight I saw you as something I never thought I would…"

Kim trailed off again momentarily before looking up from her drink and looking into Shego's eyes..

"The person who understood."

Kim, so unlike she had for the night thus far, finished off the last of her glass in one long drink and took a deep breathe.

"And tomorrow we'll go back to our fights and we won't talk about what happened here tonight and everything will be exactly the same as every other time…but it won't be because despite every punch or kick or strike or throw we'll trade, you'll still be the person who understood, right here right now, when I needed someone too. You will get old someday Shego and you will be angry, but I promise you even if it's only to keep fighting, you won't be alone because you understood."

Shego had never been hit with the type of sneak attack the teen hero had just used and for moment found herself lost for a response. No witty retorts, no urge for violence or anger, Shego simply found herself unable to face down the sincerity of Kim's words. The thought that Kim Possible of all people could find something in Shego worth connecting with both nauseated and spooked her. She was not the type of person to attract sympathetic or understanding people, she made sure of it, and yet here was the teen hero being just that. She realized she had two choices before her in that moment, either turn away from whatever similarity had found it's way between them and go back to treating Kim as something to be beaten and overcome, this night willingly forgotten, or…

"Possible."

Kim, who having finished her drink was just standing up apparently ready to leave, paused and looked at Shego, quite clearly having not expected any sort of response.

"If your expecting some kind of thanks, forget it."

Shego slammed back the remainder of her mug and stood, pairing her own steps toward the door with Kim's. As they reached the door, both in the same moment, it was Shego's final words that the pair would part on, each taking with them their own memory of the night.

"Enjoy the rest of tonight Kim because you were wrong about exactly one thing..."

Shego was first through the door, turning to finish as she walked out into the night.

"Tomorrow...nothing changes."

It was a lie, and both women knew it.


End file.
